


Sherlock's Laboratory, Episode 4: Ashes

by berlynn_wohl



Series: Sherlock's Laboratory [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Anal Sex, Androids, Angst and Porn, M/M, Post-The Reichenbach Fall, Robot Feels, Robot Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 20:28:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berlynn_wohl/pseuds/berlynn_wohl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re listening for the sound of servos. You will hear none. I am the result of painstaking planning and meticulous construction, built upon decades of others’ prior research.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sherlock's Laboratory, Episode 4: Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is the fourth in the Sherlock’s Laboratory series. It is not strictly necessary to have read the others in the series, but reading at least the first one (“Romance”) will help you understand the premise of this one.

**1.**

 

It was pitiful how little John was taking with him. Two battered cardboard boxes and his foot locker. Not that this quantity of possessions was unusual to him; it just served as a painful reminder today that, whilst happy and exciting for a time, his life had never been normal, and never would be. The furniture in the flat, the décor, the books, those had all been Sherlock’s possessions. It was Sherlock who had made 221B feel like a home. In the years that they had shared this flat, John had collected almost no new material possessions. Staring now at his meager belongings, no more than he’d had at the age of twenty-three, he felt a creeping bitterness that he had not felt since meeting Sherlock. Life with Sherlock had allowed him to avoid dealing with the stinging awareness of his outsider status, for that precious short amount of time.

Sherlock’s things, which remained mostly untouched, would be collected by Mycroft’s people soon enough. In the meantime, John’s departure with his few boxes did not feel like the abandonment of a husk of a former residence; leaving this intact sitting room, with it’s suggestion of Sherlock’s continued presence, gave John the same pang of loss that he’d felt each time he had left home for foreign shores.

He bent to grasp the handles of the foot locker, but before he could lift it, he was startled into a straight-backed, guarded stance by a noise from upstairs. He recognised the distinctive creak: it was the door to Sherlock’s laboratory, which was kept locked at all times, and to which no one living, that John was aware, possessed a key.

His gun was in one of the cardboard boxes. He had intended to throw it into the Thames; without Sherlock by his side, he anticipated no more adventures which might require it, and he feared if he held onto it, he might be tempted, once again, to use it on himself. John thrust his hand into the box and pulled it out with his finger alongside the trigger.

From the stairs, still out of sight, came a very familiar voice:

“There’s no need for dramatics, John.”

And then there he was, standing in the doorway, dressed in a white button-down shirt and black trousers, both close-fitting near to the point of ridiculousness. In his hand he held a folded piece of paper. He stepped forward and silently delivered it to John.

Betraying no trepidation, John took the paper and unfolded it. He read, in what was unmistakably Sherlock’s clear but childish script:

_John –  
_

_If you are reading this, I am probably dead. You are likely looking at an android that resembles me to an uncanny degree. I created him shortly before writing this letter, and then equipped my laboratory with a dead-man’s switch: if three weeks went by without my entering a particular code into a particular device, this android would switch on automatically.  
_

_He is Sherlock, and the fact that he is the creation of which I am most proud is not attributable merely to my considerable narcissism. I built him for you. He is not me, but I did the best I could to prepare a reasonable substitute in case of my unavoidable absence._

John crumpled up the paper. “This is the most awful, reprehensible practical joke you’ve ever pulled,” he said to the man standing in front of him. He got no reply, and the man’s stillness was eerie, even for Sherlock, which prompted John to flatten out the letter and continue reading:

_Instructions for his use are simple – he has a panel in the centre of his back, with a switch that can be toggled to COMMAND or FREE WILL. Currently he is set to COMMAND, which means he is performing only those actions which he was told to, by me, before my departure, and from now on will obey only commands you give him. The FREE WILL selection will put him entirely in control of his own decisions._

John looked into the eyes of the man before him, and said, “Turn around.” The man turned his back. John tugged his shirttail free and lifted it to reveal a faint rectangular seam between his shoulder blades. John touched it, and nothing happened. Then he pressed on it, and the patch of flesh lifted away to reveal a few blinking lights and a dial with two settings. John swore under his breath. The dial was set to COMMAND.

With a trembling hand, John turned the dial to FREE WILL.

The man (…?) turned around. “Hello, John.”

It was a perfect likeness. Not just the tailored clothes and the rich tone of voice. It blinked like Sherlock, it breathed like Sherlock. Or at least, its chest rose and fell in a simulation of breathing. It did not flinch when John reached out to touch its head and face. The hair was soft, the skin warm to the touch. He lightly pushed and prodded at its cheek, finding that the flesh easily sprang back.

“Are you another clone?” John asked.

“No,” it replied. “My creator was never able to devise a way to sustain a clone for longer than a few weeks. For me to fulfill my purpose, he resorted to artificial components. My skin and hair are organic, but my skeleton, muscles, nervous system, and organs are synthetic.”

John pondered this for a moment. “Raise and lower your arm,” he said.

The android said as he did so, “You’re listening for the sound of servos. You will hear none. I am the result of painstaking planning and meticulous construction, built upon decades of others’ prior research.”

Two years ago, John would never have believed that this was real. But having seen all that had emerged from Sherlock’s laboratory, he knew now that it would be more foolish to doubt than to believe. Nevertheless, he had to insist: “This is a joke. This is your idea of a prank. Please, please let this be a prank. Tell me that the panel on your back is some sort of movie magic. Tell me you’re real.”

The android said only, “What happened to my creator?”

Still hanging onto a shred of hope that this was Sherlock intent on continuing his ruse, John briefly explained the circumstances of his death, stammering a bit, when faced with the intense eye contact he was receiving from the very man whose demise he was describing.

“This is unfortunate but expected,” the android said without apparent emotion, when John had finished. “I will not be able to leave the flat.”

John snorted at this. “Then why are you here? Why would Sherlock go to all the trouble of creating a replica of himself, if he knew that in all likelihood, you would not be able to be seen in public, and solve crimes, and do the things he did?”

The android’s expression went blank for a fraction of a second, then he replied, “Perhaps he believed that he had some other purpose in life, beyond crime, something else that made him indispensable.”

John had to laugh at this. Whoever – whatever – this android was, its leaps of logic weren’t a patch on Sherlock’s. “No, the work was the only thing Sherlock lived for. There was nothing else, no one else.” But the expression on the android’s face when he said this was dubious.

“He didn’t,” John muttered. “He couldn’t have really made you just for _me_.”

Here, the android took a step forward, and reached out to idly toy with the collar of John’s shirt. The crushing familiarity of this gesture made John’s knees weak. That intimate little habit of Sherlock’s had been installed in this thing just for John. It certainly lent nothing to Sherlock’s detective work.

“He didn’t tell me that explicitly,” the android replied. “But it would seem that there is a high probability. Which means, if the first thing you’d like to do is take me to bed, that would be entirely acceptable, as that would be the first thing you would do if unexpectedly reunited with him.”

John laughed in shock. The importance of reunion sex was indeed something that John had taught Sherlock. How, when the long absence of the other person ended, it prompted a rush of chemicals like falling in love all over again. John assumed that Sherlock had passed John’s teachings on the matter on to his creation; why else would it have made such a suggestion so quickly? Averting his gaze, John admitted, “If the real Sherlock had reappeared in the sitting room, the first thing I _would_ want to do is shag his brains out. And while you are not the real Sherlock, he did instill in me Pavlovian arousal in the face of his perversions of science.”

John’s heart was in his throat and his stomach was somewhere near the floor. In between was churning, breathless emotion: so Sherlock really was dead. He was dead and he wasn’t coming back. But here was a remarkable facsimile. It wasn’t allowed to do everything that Sherlock did…but there were some things it _could_ do. And John was so lonely, having been so abruptly cut adrift – he had no will to resist these new circumstances he found himself in. It wasn’t what he had wished for, but if it was what he was being offered, he would clutch at it with both fists.

John did not allow the words to escape his mouth until he was certain he wouldn’t stumble over them. “Sherlock. Let’s…go to bed.”

 

**2.**

 

It was so quiet and normal. Just for a minute. They wandered into the bedroom without speaking, Sherlock leading the way. When they came to a halt at the edge of the bed, John reached down to remove his shoes, but maintained eye contact as Sherlock sat on the bed. “You knew where the bedroom was,” he noted.

“My creator supplied me with all the data that he himself possessed.”

“ _All_ of the data? Does that include data about…us?”

“Not entirely. My creator found the implantation of memories problematic, due to their inherent emotional content. I can identify emotions in others, and simulate them myself, but I do not feel them. However, even without this information, you should find me to be a suitable replacement in the realm of sexual activity. I was given a map of your body, just as I was given a floor plan of the flat.”

“I see.” John started to unbutton his shirt, but then left it so that he could unbutton Sherlock’s shirt instead. He wanted to see all of Sherlock, _now_. “But you’re capable of making new memories, and retaining them?” he asked as he pried each button free.

“Yes.”

“Brilliant. Let’s do that.”

The more Sherlock explained his limitations and pointed out his status as a non-living being, the less John cared. He moved like Sherlock, he sounded like Sherlock. As such, it was becoming increasingly difficult to think of him as a robot. The mental image of the LED lights John had seen in his back was rapidly becoming fuzzy, distant. John’s body was reacting only to what he now beheld.

When John finished with Sherlock’s shirt, Sherlock tilted so that he lay on his back with his feet still on the floor. That was what he often did, so that John could more easily proceed to unfastening his trousers and pulling them off. After that, Sherlock would pull John down; how he did this would indicate how the sex would proceed. If he pulled John onto him, that would mean he wanted John to top. If he pushed John onto the mattress and rolled on top of him, it meant he intended to penetrate John. Sometimes he did neither, and they would just have a bit of a rub and tug. But today he got himself on top of John and put his mouth to John’s ear. His breath was hot, and moist.

“Let me tell you something that I do know about you, despite my shortage of memories,” he whispered as he parted John from his clothing. “You are a doctor and a soldier – two occupations which make you a paragon of authoritative masculine competency.”

This was not the most erotic thing that Sherlock had ever said to John in bed, but nor was it the least. As Sherlock continued talking, he became more aggressive, yanking John’s unbuttoned trousers down and off, pushing John back down onto the bed when he sat up to assist. He nipped at John’s ear with his teeth and said, “That is why you love it when I fuck your arse.”

With that, he lifted John with ease, so quickly and smoothly that there was no question that when constructed he had been imbued with superhuman strength. He flipped John onto his stomach, then grabbed his hips and pulled him into a hands-and-knees position. John gasped and sobbed each time Sherlock manoeuvred him. Just the fact that Sherlock was _here_ was a delightful shock to his system. But being manhandled like this was making his prick so hard it was slightly terrifying.

“You find it agreeable, to penetrate me, but you strongly prefer it when I penetrate you. The military environment you inhabited for seventeen years looks upon the practice as ‘weak’ and ‘feminine,’ and the fact that you thrived in this masculine setting, that in daily life you were utterly secure and in control, only makes relinquishing power and being penetrated more exciting for you.”

Sherlock retrieved their bottle of lube – he knew right where it was kept – and began to slick his cock. No fingers first to prepare John. That cock was just going straight up him, ready or not. Good thing he was ready. Sherlock continued talking:

“You feel a naughty thrill, taking pleasure in something so unforgivably transgressive. Just the act of getting on your hands and knees, thinking about the imminent violation from behind that you are about to receive, is enough to make you moan.”

Normally, when Sherlock was fucking John from behind, he had to spread his knees to compensate for John’s shorter legs. But this Sherlock, possessing much greater strength, could simply lift John to meet his cock. John lost his breath when his knees left the mattress. With almost no leverage, he could do little but allow himself to be drawn back and forth, impaled over and over, his arse brutally impacting Sherlock’s hips as he felt that cock going all the way up him with each stroke, whether he wanted it that deep or not.

“And now that I am in control of you, now that my cock is inside you and fucking you deeply, the only other thing you could possibly desire is for me to shoot my load inside you.”

“Yes,” John breathed. He was so ready to come he was dizzy. He didn’t want to say, “I missed your cock. I missed your come,” but that was how he felt at the moment. Of course he missed Sherlock’s cleverness, his dry humour and his sense of adventure. But he also missed Sherlock’s ability and willingness to give his arse an exquisite merciless pounding, and yes, to know the reasons _why_ John loved being fucked that way.

Distantly, he heard Sherlock groaning sharply. Meanwhile, the head of his own cock, slick with pre-come, slapped wetly against his belly with each of Sherlock’s final, forceful thrusts, and that was all the touch it needed; John came screaming, his prostate throbbing as his cock pulsed.

When at last he came back to himself, Sherlock was slowly withdrawing his softening cock. John squirmed as his arsehole forced the last of it out and clenched, trying to close but remaining soft and open for a while longer. He did not know if Sherlock had ejaculated inside him, if he could perform that action, but he did not ask, for fear that he would not like the answer.

Gently now, Sherlock helped him recline comfortably on the bed, and adjusted his pillow for him. “I trust you found that experience satisfying.”

“Yes, I did. Yes. You know, your prick felt just like h–” John stopped himself. He was about to say _just like his_ , but instead he finished lamely, “like heaven.”

But John couldn’t bring himself to become melancholy. The shock of his unexpected reunion with Sherlock and the fact that he had just been made to come so unbelievably hard meant that he was in no condition to feel any sort of heightened emotion, or to possess doubts about anything. Now he just wanted a cuddle, which Sherlock provided with the same uncanny resemblance to his creator: spooning up tightly behind John and tickling him with warm breath and occasional kisses to the back of his neck, his arm wrapped round John’s chest, rather than his waist.

 

 

**3.**

 

John awoke to the smell of frying bacon. He had a bit of a shock as he opened his eyes and sat up – it had been several weeks since he’d slept in Sherlock’s bed. Then things started coming back to him, and he smiled. He put his trousers on and went into the kitchen to investigate the smell.

Sherlock was standing over the stove, and without looking up said, “I was just about to wake you.” He scooped up the contents of two frying pans and dropped what amounted to a full English onto a plate, which he set on the kitchen table for John. He had only made enough for one; apparently the android Sherlock didn’t eat, either.

John tucked in, exclaiming after two bites, “This is brilliant. Is this the first time you’ve ever cooked a meal?”

“Cooking is just applied chemistry,” Sherlock replied.

“That’s not true. There’s a subtlety to it, that requires a sense of smell. Taste buds. Do you have those?”

“Not as such,” Sherlock admitted. “But cooking a proper full English is not a matter of soul, only a matter of precise timing, which I _do_ possess.”

From then on, John could count on at least two delicious meals a day, three if he didn’t have a shift at the surgery. Although Sherlock read several daily newspapers and kept up on criminal goings-on, being unable to leave the flat to do any actual crime-fighting left him with plenty of free time for the culinary arts.

So the first several days of John’s new life, with his new Sherlock, were filled with good food, ecstatic sex, and a seemingly endless series of questions. Even after John had gleaned all the information he could from lifting Sherlock’s eyelids, testing his reactions to tickling, and breathing cool air on his arm to watch the hairs rise, he still had a thousand concerns. For example:

“How is it that you have a belly button?” John asked one day at the kitchen table, distracting Sherlock from poking at some petri dishes full of spores.

“It would be more disconcerting to observers such as yourself if I lacked one,” Sherlock replied, “so it was constructed for aesthetic purposes.”

“Do you bleed? What would happen if I cut you?”

Sherlock rose from the table and took a knife from the kitchen drawer. He handed it to John, handle-first. “You’re welcome to find out.”

“Jesus Christ, there’s no need to be morbid.” He took the knife, but set it aside. That question was never answered. “When you and I…” he began. “When we have sex, can you feel…I mean, when I touch you, can you enjoy it?”

Sherlock didn’t answer right away. His expression became blank, as it always did when he paused before speaking. Then he said, “Touch me, right now. Touch me in a way that would make a human feel good.”

John’s options were limited, as he was seated across the table from Sherlock, but Sherlock had his arm on the table, so John caressed it, down to the wrist, then squeezed Sherlock’s hand in his own.

“Alright,” Sherlock said. “I felt the pure physical sensations, where and how your hand made contact with my arm and my hand. The speed of movement and the pressure exerted. I have sufficient data to recognise that this touch is regarded as affectionate; I can differentiate it from, say, grabbing my arm to direct me, or slapping my hand as a reprimand.”

Sherlock turned his hand beneath John’s, so that his palm faced up.

“I know that if an affectionate gesture is considered welcome by the recipient, they should respond in kind, so I do this by moving my hand in a way that increases the surface contact of our skin. We have now both signaled our fondness for each other, and this common feeling creates a bond. Though small, it is a new event in our shared history, and each new event is an opportunity for an artificial intelligence to learn and evolve.”

John smiled. “I was worried that your answer would make you sound like a robot…but you pretty much sounded like Sherlock. I mean…you sounded like _you_.”

Sherlock smiled back, just a tiny smile, also very much like him.

“I have one more question for now; it’s about that control panel in your back. It’s set to ‘Free Will.’”

“Yes.”

“Which means you will do whatever you want until I switch it to Command, and then you have to obey my orders.”

“Yes.”

“Are there any rules about the commands? Like Asimov’s three laws of robotics, anything like that?”

“No. I could hardly be called a reasonable facsimile of Sherlock if I was unwilling or unable to justifiably harm someone.”

“And how exactly do the commands work? For example, could I give you a command, like, ‘Be just like Sherlock, except don’t do any of the things I find annoying, like blowing up the kitchen.’”

“You could do that,” Sherlock mused. “But you won’t.” And he smiled again.

 

 

**4.**

 

Upon returning home, John found Sherlock on the sofa, sitting perfectly still in concentration, elbows on knees and fingers steepled, staring intently at his laptop, which he’d set on the coffee table.

John’s initial reaction was to be grateful; he was just back from the dentist, and was happy to find no mayhem upon his return. On the other hand, such intense calm from Sherlock was often the _prelude_ to mayhem. John stood in the doorway and watched Sherlock for several minutes, waiting for him to slam the laptop shut and leap from the sofa to grab his coat from the hook. But he only moved to click the progress bar on the video that was playing, so that he could watch it again, and again.

Finally, John sat next to Sherlock, so that he could see the video himself. It was that suicide bomber in the Bible Belt. One of those states in America that was always red in political diagrams.

John watched along with Sherlock. It was amateur footage, filmed with a mobile phone. From what John had seen on the news, the gathering was a rally for a conservative senator (or congressman, or something), and had been rudely interrupted by a man who had made his way to the front row and then blown himself up, taking with him, among others, the politician and the politician’s son, some bright spark from a think-tank who had been seated on the dais beside him. It had later come out that the bomber was a doctor who worked for a reproductive health clinic that provided abortions. He did not perform that procedure himself, nonetheless, several news outlets referred to him as “an abortionist,” and a great hue and cry was now being raised in America that so-called “pro-choice” types had proven themselves to have no limits when it came to the destruction of innocent human life in pursuit of their godless liberal agenda, and so on and so forth.

The whole thing didn’t make much sense to John. He understood slightly more than the average Englishman about the minutiae of American ideology thanks to his close proximity to their soldiers in Afghanistan, though his knowledge was still basically limited to national elections and whatever sex scandals made their way into the _Metro_. This didn’t seem to him to be a “suicide bomber” issue.

Sherlock, on the other hand, was not baffled in the least. He was well on his way to the truth, and with just the gentlest prompting from John (i.e., John had sat down next to him on the sofa), he launched into his explanation. “YouTube is full of this phone footage. Most of it is not being shown on television because of its gruesome content.” Just as he said this, whoever was shooting the video Sherlock was playing had their mobile knocked out of their hand by a flying projectile. “Pretty sure that was some skull,” Sherlock remarked. “Anyway, the video I _did_ see on television had been professionally shot from behind the dais, and the doctor was clearly visible.” Sherlock skipped to another tab in his browser, and played for John a much crisper and less shaky video of a rapt crowd, complete with a reporter’s droning live commentary. “That man is supposed to be the terrorist. Do you notice anything unusual about him?

John tried to come up with something – height, build, age…demeanor? “Looks a bit shifty,” John mumbled, half his face still numb. “Keeps adjusting his jacket.”

“The jacket. Precisely. He’s the only one in the crowd wearing one. It was thirty-three degrees that day. Why wear a wool jacket? It would be helpful if I could see him close-up, but of course any phone filming him that closely would have been destroyed in the blast.”

“I’m sure they have people on it. No one’s relying on you, you know. You don’t have to solve it.”

Sherlock looked away from the computer screen for the first time since John had entered the room. His expression made John feel very silly indeed; how could he have thought that death would be enough to stop Sherlock Holmes from being relentlessly driven to solve mysteries? He conceded with a fond chuckle and bid Sherlock good afternoon, then retired to the bedroom to nap while the lidocaine wore off.

Lying in bed, he couldn’t help but smile, at least with the right half of his face. Now it really felt like Sherlock was properly in his life again; singularly focused on unraveling a puzzling crime. He felt warm and fuzzy just thinking about how normal the last ten minutes had seemed. Suddenly, he didn’t want to be by himself in the bedroom. He got up again, returned to the sitting room, and laid himself down on the sofa so his feet were in Sherlock’s lap. Sherlock squeezed them idly with one hand while navigating YouTube with the other. John drifted into sleep to the sound of Sherlock muttering to himself.

He had no idea how long he’d slept when Sherlock woke him, or whether he had been given a nudge, or gently addressed, before Sherlock had started in with his lecture:

“I found some more local news footage, that was being broadcast live. It was taken about twenty minutes before the blast. Here, you can see the doctor clearly behind the reporter. See how his nose is twitching? Now look at the people standing next to him. This woman is covering her nose, and the man is looking down, like he’s sniffing himself. Someone in that vicinity is giving off an odd odour.” Sherlock paused the video. “I can see the edge of a stain here on his shirt, under the jacket. At first I thought whatever caused the stain might be causing the odour, but then it occurred to me: why might someone wear a jacket in that heat? If they had something to cover up! The front’s open, so he’s not hiding a bomb vest. Perhaps he was the victim of a mishap with a beverage or food, and put the jacket on to hide the stain. The jacket’s not quite his size; too narrow in the shoulders, that explains the fidgeting. And if the jacket’s not his, that would explain his reaction to an unfamiliar smell. There are several explosives that give off distinctive odours. Urea nitrate, for one. But the smell of urine would provoke a stronger reaction in those nearby. Which is why I think it was acetone peroxide. It’s very commonly used in IEDs, it has a bleach odour, and it is extremely sensitive to shock and friction. Perfect to place on an unsuspecting person and send them into a crowd.”

John tried to swallow back some of the bad taste in his mouth from sleeping, before he opened his mouth. “So, someone planted smelly explosives in the coat and gave it to him to wear?”

“Likely encouraged him to wear it by accidentally spilling red wine or something on him. ‘Oh, dear, how embarrassing. Here, take my jacket to cover that stain. Least I could do.’”

“So all that would need to be done,” John said, “would be to find a survivor who remembers seeing the spill and the transfer of the coat. Whoever gave it to him would be the _real_ suspect.”

“Exactly.”

“Except…you can’t really tell anyone that, can you?”

“I’ll get in touch with Mycroft. He’s got people in America.”

“Mycroft knows you’re alive? That is, I mean, Mycroft knows that you…exist?”

Sherlock smirked. “How do you know that Mycroft – or the man you _think_ is Mycroft – isn’t an android himself? How do you know that I wasn’t actually built by Mycroft? How do you know that _you_ aren’t an android, made by Mycroft and programmed to believe that you are a human being?”

John’s eyes got wide and he swallowed thickly. His mind raced, searching for evidence that these accusations might be true. Missing time? Incongruous memories? Sly, knowing remarks by Mycroft at Sherlock’s funeral?

“Only joking,” Sherlock said after he saw the panic in John’s eyes. “Just wanted to see if you still trusted me so unreservedly that you would believe anything I said. It’s good that you do. Might still come in handy.”

John watched as Sherlock opened his email and tapped out a quick message, apparently to Mycroft. Then he closed the laptop and sat in quiet contemplation.

“You’re unhappy because you didn’t get to do any leg work,” John observed. “Not very fulfilling, I imagine. Solving crimes with YouTube. I mean, you did unravel a cover-up, but that can’t be as satisfying as if you’d unraveled a cover-up _and_ narrowly escaped death.”

Sherlock waved a hand dismissively. “I am not capable of being happy or unhappy, and particularly not at the prospect of excitement or adventure, and the chemical reactions they provoke in an organic brain. You’re projecting onto me. It is you who is dissatisfied.”

Sherlock stood up abruptly, ready to move on to the next activity, and left John on the sofa.

 

**5.**

 

John treasured every moment that was like the old days. Things that Sherlock had done and said that he had long ago found maddening, and then later took in stride, now delighted him. For instance, the time that John returned home after a lengthy ride on the tube. In the kitchen, he blew the soot out of his nose, and as Sherlock passed by on the way from the sitting room, he snatched the tissue out of John’s hands.

“You did that just a week ago,” John remarked.

“Yes, when you’d been on the Circle line. Today you were on the Metropolitan line,” Sherlock replied, dropping the tissue onto the kitchen table and sitting down in front of his microscope. Next to the microscope was the evidence that Sherlock had not employed any deductive powers to come to that conclusion: John’s ticket, which had been fished out of the bin.

It also did not escape John’s notice – nor did he fail to appreciate – that not only was the sex as good as it ever was, and often better by virtue of being more intense, but it also happened more frequently. As often as John wanted it, in fact. His requests were never refused or delayed on account of Sherlock’s work. It was a blessing, so long as John didn’t think about it too much. Sometimes he would be reminded, when the tremor returned to his hand and he realised how long it had been since he’d experienced that magnificent rush of adrenalin, how many weeks had passed since he had leapt, plummeted, raced, dangled, or struggled. But Sherlock always sensed John’s growing anxiety, and would remedy the situation by saying to him, “We should have sex.” And although this was not precisely the activity that John needed to quench his thirst for excitement, he wasn’t made of stone, and so he would accept Sherlock’s pragmatic overture every time.

And the sex was its own kind of exciting. With his extraordinary strength, Sherlock could easily bounce John on his cock, even while standing. _That_ night had been an incredible experience. John had just wrapped his legs round Sherlock’s hips, with one arm loosely round Sherlock’s shoulders so that he could wank with the other, and let Sherlock do all the rest, gripping John’s arse, lifting him and impaling him, over and over, never tiring. John could take all the time he needed; Sherlock had bounced him as though he were weightless. And when he’d finished, Sherlock had put him gently down on the bed, and John had lain there for several minutes, stunned, whilst Sherlock tidied him up.

John had woken up several hours later with a dry throat, no doubt dehydrated from the evening’s vigorous activities. He smiled at this thought as he made his way into the kitchen for a glass of water. The light from the refrigerator shone on a newspaper that lay askew on the kitchen table, and John had read it as he drank:

 

 **“SLOANE SPECTRE” STRIKES AGAIN**  
PRICELESS TAPESTRIES GO MISSING FROM V &A  
GUARD FOUND STRANGLED - POLICE BAFFLED

 

John had felt a twinge, like he’d suddenly remembered a missed appointment. Sherlock would have leapt at the chance to catch the Spectre, to chase an elusive and homicidal burglar, and aggrandise himself in front of the Yard when the thief was captured at last. That this headline had made its way into their flat and gone unmentioned had made John suddenly think, _Maybe I died too, and this is purgatory_. But that was an appalling (and unlikely) notion to have, and he’d banished it immediately.

Upon returning to bed, John had soon found himself gathered up in Sherlock’s arms. Sherlock’s skin was so soft and warm, his hold on John so reassuring. _See, this isn’t so bad, is it_ , John had said to himself as he drifted back to sleep. _I just need to stop wanting him to be exactly like the old Sherlock. Once I learn to just change my expectations, things will be fine_.

 

*****

 

His colleagues at the surgery noticed the change in him after Sherlock’s return. “You must have someone new in your life,” Doctor Greaves remarked in the canteen one day. “Can’t think of any other reason for a grown man to have that twinkle in his eye. That and you never want to go out for a pint anymore. Someone else must be showing you a better time.”

John thought back to the previous night. He had been restless, but Sherlock could not accompany him on any sort of excursion, and he didn’t want to leave Sherlock behind. Instead, Sherlock had spent the evening attempting to placate John with soothing melodies on the violin.

“Someone new, yeah,” John answered vaguely, and continued eating his lunch.

“That’s good, you know. Best not dwell on Sherlock. I mean, I never knew him, just what I read in the papers…I imagine he was quite a bloke to go around with. But if there’s one thing I do know, it’s that when someone leaves your life, you’ve just got to let them go, and keep on living. Don’t let the ghost of somebody keep you from moving on.”

A bit taken aback, John mumbled an affirmative, and slowly resumed chewing. He dropped his left hand beneath the table, and squeezed it into a fist several times before he could swallow his mouthful of food.

 

*****

 

Stepping into the sitting room, John found Sherlock in quiet contemplation on the sofa, with a length of narrow cable snaking out from under him across the floor and into a plug on the mains. Sherlock knew that John found it unsettling to see him like that. He said, “You’re home early. You usually do the shopping on Thursdays.”

“I’ll go tomorrow,” John said. “Not feeling well.” In fact, he felt not ill but distraught, so much so that his muscle memory had failed him and he’d walked right by the shops.

He went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. When he returned to the sitting room, Sherlock approached him, his power cable nowhere to be seen.

“John,” Sherlock said, putting a tentative hand out, and his breathy tone told John exactly what he was about to suggest they do.

John held up one finger to silence him. “Don’t—alright, listen. Don’t—”

But looking into Sherlock’s eyes, he could not go on. It was just as it had always been. He couldn’t refuse Sherlock anything. All afternoon, in his thoughts, Sherlock had been a robot, a thing. But now, John was looking at Sherlock’s face, watching him breathe, feeling his presence. He looked down; Sherlock was barefoot, and John saw his toes wiggle as he shifted slightly.

Sherlock – the real Sherlock – had built this for him. He had worked very hard to create a being so detailed, so lifelike, so human in its quirkiness that it leapt right across the Uncanny Valley. The time and effort that he must have put in. This was what Sherlock wanted for him, and John did not have a thing to complain about. Perhaps life was not as it had been, _could not_ be as it had been, but he got on alright, employed and housed and with a devoted lover and friend. He shouldn’t let the things Greaves had said bother him. There was nothing he needed to move on from. He was living his life perfectly well, better than ninety-five percent of the people on Earth, probably.

“Never mind,” John finally said. “Let’s just…have a nice quiet evening in.” ( _Every evening is an evening in_ , he couldn’t help thinking…) “And we’ll…do that later. Right at bedtime, like normal couples do. Under the covers and with the lights off and everything.”

“Whatever you like,” Sherlock replied.

Sherlock made dinner, as usual. Dry chicken and dark leafy greens. John had been insisting lately that there be no more gravy, cream, or frying of anything. “I’ve put on half a stone,” he had said, “thanks to your cooking…and to no running about.”

They ate in front of the telly; _Goldeneye_ was on, and when they finished eating they just put the plates on the floor and had a cuddle until the film was over. Sherlock made appropriately annoyed comments at regular intervals, and explained the truth about 006 the moment he appeared on the screen. But John had seen it before, so he wasn’t bothered.

John was so comfortable, when the film ended he didn’t want to get up. He considered having Sherlock on the sofa, the telly still droning in the background. But he very much preferred to lay Sherlock down on their sheets and spread him out properly. So he dragged himself off the sofa and took Sherlock to bed.

The bed was unmade; they snuggled down into the nest of pillows and duvet. Sherlock pressed himself against John, tucking his warm, stiff cock against John’s belly as he insisted, with little coos and sighs, that John touch him, hold him tighter, kiss him harder. He sort of wrestled himself underneath John, spreading his legs wide to accommodate John’s body, clasping him with powerful thighs.

Despite Sherlock’s needy noises and strong grip, it was all very quiet and intimate. With the bedroom door closed and the curtains shut, they were sealed in their own little private world, and Sherlock’s soft cries and demanding body were all John knew, and all he wanted to know. He buried his face in the crook of Sherlock’s neck and inhaled deeply.

And he smelled nothing.

It was something that had not occurred to him before, though it now seemed ridiculously obvious: lacking apocrine glands, Sherlock did not sweat, and not needing to eat or otherwise consume matter, he absorbed nothing odiferous which he might then exude.

Sherlock’s scent, which still lingered in the clothes in his closet and the sheets in his bureau, was absent from his body. His skin, which John could pinch and squeeze, and which was drawn enticingly taut when Sherlock stretched, had been grown in a laboratory.

Unlike John’s brain, John’s cock was not particularly interested in Sherlock’s lack of odour. At that point it was primarily interested in being pushed slickly into Sherlock’s body. Sherlock also seemed interested in this; he put the bottle of lube into John’s hands and squirmed until John began to prepare him. Sherlock was properly warm inside, and squeezed tantalisingly around John’s fingers, whilst begging for his cock. And John gladly gave it to him. He wanted to turn those needy moans into squeals of pleasure and then into satisfied sighs.

But in the back of his mind the truth nagged at him: this Sherlock does not feel need or satisfaction. John wasn’t pleasuring Sherlock, he was pleasuring himself by fucking into a robot. John gritted his teeth as he drove into the clench of Sherlock’s body, ashamed of himself for not being ashamed. Ten hours ago, in the surgery canteen, reflecting on the idea of having a sardonic sex toy as his sole companion had made him disgusted with himself. Now, in this moment of passion, the thought gave him a dirty thrill, and though he came far sooner than he would have liked, he relished Sherlock’s own perfectly timed and entirely artificial noises of gratification.

But the moment he finished, John cringed with humiliation and remorse.

 

**6.**

 

He did not fall asleep until just before dawn, and when his alarm clock went off an hour later, he had mere moments of blissful semi-wakefulness before the events of the previous evening asserted themselves in his mind. He sat up, had a look round to make sure Sherlock was nowhere in the room, and only then put his face in his hands and let out a thin, high whine. Today was the day that he’d been vaguely pondering for weeks, dreading in the far recesses of his mind: the day when he finally accepted that Sherlock’s gift to him was no solution, and in fact only deepened and prolonged the problem.

Was this was really the life he’d chosen for himself? Cooped up in a flat with a robot, getting fat, feeling empty and repulsive every time he had sex – and justifiably so? And on top of all that, convincing himself that life was grand. It wasn’t grand. It was pathetic. Every home-cooked meal, every mote of dust that gathered on Sherlock’s wool coat, every taunting newspaper headline, was a reminder of this. Well, at this moment, wrapped in twisted sheets, sleep-deprived, and consumed with self-loathing, John finally decided: he could not put it off any longer.

Perhaps just a _bit_ longer. He couldn’t do what needed to be done in the state he was in, unshaven and with dragon-breath. So he showered, made tea, ate some toast, felt presentable. Sherlock was in the sitting room, barreling through several newspapers. John stood in the doorway to the kitchen; if Sherlock noticed the attention John was paying him, he did not acknowledge it. John thought, _I can’t do it now, and then just go to the surgery like nothing’s happened. I’ll do it when I come home_. He took his coat off the hook. “Well, I’m off,” he said. Sherlock made a noncommittal noise and flipped to the next page.

When he arrived at the surgery, Sarah was taken aback by his appearance. “Are you alright? You look like you’re here to _see_ a doctor, not be one.”

John glanced at himself in the glass of the door, and flinched: despite being showered and fed, his slumped shoulders and the dark circles under his eyes gave away his current state of mind. He was a walking reflection of his stress headache and twisted-up stomach.

“’Salright,” John said, still making a valiant effort to sound stable. “Not contagious or anything. Just slept poorly.” He forced a smile and said, “Which is shameful, seeing as I’ve had thirty-eight years of practice at it.”

Sarah smiled back sympathetically. “You can go home. We don’t need you; Saniya is in today.”

“No, I’d really–” John nearly said _I need to be here today, to keep my mind off what’s going on at home_. But that was not an appropriate thing for a doctor to say aloud. To be fair, it wasn’t as though he was about to be wrist-deep in anyone’s chest cavity. And in fact, for the next seven hours he did not find himself so much as finger-deep in a drained abscess. The day passed entirely uneventfully, a rote litany of “bed rest and fluids,” “it’ll clear right up with this cream,” and “it’s not thrush, just stop using that mouthwash.”

On the bus home, John practiced, in his head, what he was going to say to Sherlock; he would do well to reduce it to the simplest, most straightforward phrases. By the time he got off the bus, he was certain he was in the proper frame of mind and sufficiently prepared to do what needed to be done. But as he climbed the stairs, he reconsidered. Getting right down to it just seemed rude. It couldn’t hurt to have a cup of tea. So he put the kettle on first.

Sherlock was in the kitchen, hunched over the table, handling a bit of fluff with a pair of tweezers. John’s guts turned at the sight of him engaged in such a Sherlockian activity. His already flimsy intentions, delayed as they were by his morning routine, by work, and by a winding-down cuppa – perhaps dinner as well – nearly evaporated then and there. It had been easier to feel determined when he’d been sitting on the bus, picturing a hopelessly inhuman Sherlock. Now seated in front of him was a far more convincing facsimile then resided in his mind’s eye. Yes, dinner first, and then he would do what needed doing. The moment he decided this, Sherlock said, “Leftover lasagna in the fridge.”

Was Sherlock’s refusal to perform a meaningful act like cooking John a nice dinner an indication that he was oblivious to John’s intentions? Or was it that he was – like his creator – just that lacking in sentiment? Or perhaps, Sherlock knew that John would lose his nerve and choose instead to go on despairing as he had been, gorging himself on Sherlock the way a starving man gulped down a meal, only to find, night after night, that it turned to ash in his mouth.

This final possibility instilled within him a new defiance. He wasn’t going to wait for dinner. This would happen now. _You can do this. It’s not. Really. Him._ He flicked the switch to shut off the kettle, took a deep breath. “Sherlock,” he said, “could you lift your shirt, please?”

“Busy,” Sherlock muttered, not looking up from the bit of fluff at the end of his tweezers.

“Then d’you mind if I just…”

Sherlock grunted, presumably in reply. John tugged at the tail of Sherlock’s shirt, untucking it and hiking it up to reveal the panel, which had remained untouched since their initial encounter. He pressed it, and the cover lifted away to reveal the dial, set to FREE WILL. John turned it to COMMAND. Sherlock did not resist, and went still, dropping the tweezers as the dial clicked into place.

For some reason, perhaps in the interest of dignity, John smoothed Sherlock’s shirt more or less back into place, then went round to the other side of the table to face him. He cleared his throat. “Right. Sherlock: I want you to…” He stopped, and began again. “Sherlock, stand up.”

Sherlock obeyed.

“Get the key to the laboratory.” John’s throat was so tight, even these simple commands were an effort to push out.

Sherlock walked in a straight line to the coffee table, where he picked the key out from an unremarkable pile of clutter which had accumulated over recent weeks. Then he returned to where John stood.

“Is this the only key to the laboratory that you know of?”

“Yes,” Sherlock replied.

“Take this key with you. Go upstairs and enter the laboratory. Close and lock the door behind you. Then shut yourself down.” He faltered. “Or power down…or whatever it is you call it. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Sherlock turned and left the kitchen. John stared at the floor, listening to Sherlock’s tread on the stair, the squeak of the hinge of the laboratory door. A chill ran through him, just as it had when he’d heard that squeak the last time that door had opened. Moments later, John felt something odd around him, a presence leaving, an ambient sensation suddenly gone, as when you shut off an appliance and only then realise how loud the hum was that it had been emitting.

John stood very still for several minutes, then pivoted and marched into the sitting room. A cardboard box, emptied of it’s tightly-packed contents shortly after John’s first encounter with the android, had been serving as a receptacle for books and other items destined for the charity shop. John upturned it, then took it into the bedroom, where he began re-filling it with his meager possessions.  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> If, having finished this fic, you somehow DON'T hate me and wish I hadn't written it, might I recommend checking out berlynn-wohl on Tumblr? Plenty of original content, including Sherlock, Deadpool, Loki, Star Trek, Hiddles, and Night Vale, plus meta stuff about slash, smut, & fandom.


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